The Division Sticking with Manhattan Setting; New York Recreation Will Offer “A Huge Open-World Experience”

Originally revealed back in 2013, the long-awaited The Division is finally seeing release in the early part of the year in March, and in particular the game’s development team gave a bit more info on what to expect from the game’s spot-on recreation of New York City.

Speaking to Examiner, The Division creative director Magnus Jansen revealed that the title’s release will focus entirely on the Midtown Manhattan area, in response to questions of whether the game would branch out to the other boroughs of New York such as Queens, Staten Island, or more: especially given that Brooklyn was featured in the game’s original gameplay demo in E3 2013.

Jansen detailed further in the interview on the game’s setting and locations in New York:

“For Tom Clancy’s The Division we are going with Midtown Manhattan. It is because of the 1 to 1 re-creation and the way the pandemic has [happened]. Basically, everything has been hit and there are no more resources because everyone tried to get out. There is no more gasoline in the cars, there is no traffic, you’re on foot.”

“With the level of detail we have, doing Midtown Manhattan is a huge open-world experience and more than enough to sink your teeth into. It is a very sizable open-world game.”

While Brooklyn was featured as a location from the original demo, it appears the development team may have scaled back a bit to solely focus on the Midtown area to provide more density and depth to a specific area, though with DLC and expansions planned for the game down the line, it certainly wouldn’t seem out of the question for the title to expand its recreation of New York City to the other boroughs.

The Division will release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 8th, 2016.

Ryan is the Features Editor at DualShockers, with over five years' experience in the world of video games culture and writing. He holds a BA in English & Cinema from Binghamton University, and lives in New York City.